Korra: Time and the Avatar
by Tetsuo of Gallifrey
Summary: This is a story. An introduction, if you will . . .
1. Introduction

**Korra: Time and the Avatar**

It all started, as most things in myth and legend tend to do, with a flat, perfectly so, slab of rock, which bore a kind of roughly sketchy profile, of the kind that a child might draw. It is important to understand that the figure depicted was not overtly sketchy in its appearance; that is to say, the image was not frightening or grotesque in any way, but that it was simply sketchy. As though an amateurish artist had drawn it out hastily in a footnote while trying to capture the proper lighting in another body of work all together. This sketchy person's profile, which was at the same time not sketchy, was also adorned with immaculately precise and beautifully crafted characters, the kind one would find on a declaration of something significant.

In the eons that have passed since the blue moon's night upon which they were carved, both the profile and the characters have long since lost their powers. This phenomenon having taken the greatest toll on the character's chiseled faces. I don't mean to say that the characters have eroded or degraded in any fashion, quite the opposite in fact; but rather that the proper pronunciation of, and in several more serious cases, the existence of such a word in the Common Tongue has long been lost to the sands of time.

As best as most modern scholars can discern, the stone edifies reads as such:

In the beginning, there was the Dao, and the might that is the Lion Turtle.

Then, there was the Avatar, and their time.

Now, there is nothing but the end.

Scholars insist, as all scholars do, on debating the fine points. For example, some scholars from far off to the west claim that the form, following the function of "Might", should be hyphenated, or be plural; and others from an easterly bearing would insist that a number of remaining as-of-yet un-translated characters are in desperate need of identification; all of which would ultimately do little more than call into question the ancient equivalent of literacy, but would do little by way of altering the message, ultimately rendering it the same as at present.

Taken in the most common of ways, these few undeniably cryptic lines of prophetic pandering, chiseled into hard stone by one of the ten-thousand civilizations from all across the world, should be little more than a mockingly-philosophical question only asked of the youngest of our children.

It's the mind's job to make sense of the things that cannot be understood in a way that can. When it comes to things like this, these questions are best left to children.

Who would ever, reasonably that is, believe, for example, that, in any reasonable way, once upon a time, human beings could turn their breath into fire? Or create mountains from flat earth with their bare hands? And certainly not the notion of battering the skies with hurricane winds and waters?

Humans were once like Gods. But not any longer.

Impossible? Unthinkable?

The last of these Gods thought the same. Oh, not the shear absurdity of fire manipulation or earth conjuring, you understand; but the idea that her people could ever lose so much to both time and fate. Or, more especially, the fact that it was she that would set it all in motion.

Author's Note: This is something I wrote for fun and I'm interested to see what the feedback is on it (admittedly, **if** there is any). If anybody has any suggestions on where I could take the story, please review and leave your opinion. Thank you.


	2. Prologue

Prologue

Have you ever felt that kind of nagging feeling; that sensation at the ghost-half of the back of your brain? It's that nagging that happens when you're busy with something else, and you know that you need to have your full attention focused on what you're actually doing, but you can't help but not do that. That non-specific nagging that lets you take time and your whole life, really, like a pile of warm clay: you can mold it and play with it and make it do anything you want, while at the same time, you get your most thought-provoking ideas. Time.

The one thing that everybody in the whole universe tries their very best to pretend they know everything about. The one thing that's always there; lurking in the sun and in the shadows. It's what's always there and still, somehow, everybody manages to overlook it. Nobody ever seems to notice time anymore, and it's a shame.

Well, they do, but they don't, really.

You'd honestly be amazed by how many people, when it comes to the most mundane and, honestly, boring things, just throw up their hands and say 'Oh, I'll just do it tomorrow…or, maybe, the next day?' People who say things like that manage to never live. Not really. They more or less live in the middle of things. But what I'm saying is; what if tomorrow never gets here?

It's taken me a bit, but I've learned that the trick, when it comes to dealing with time, is how you look at it.

My name is Avatar Korra. And this is the day that I die.

Of course, nobody knows any of this yet. Not even me. Isn't that always the way? Everything that's happened lately just…fries your brain. And right now, I'm afraid I'm out of my time and out of my depth.

Normally, this is about the time when I would look overconfidently over my right shoulder and give a smirk to echo that overconfidence, and belly-laugh at whatever danger I was facing. Oh…maybe when I was younger, or when life still made sense. Well, as much sense as being me can make anyway. After all, it's not like me being in over my head is a new phenomenon, you understand. But this is. This is _so_ different. _This_ is all or nothing.

Far away. So, very far, and away…

Like everything that has ever, or will ever happen; this story too has a beginning and an ending. The beginning, in this particular case, belongs a long way from where it'll end: Republic City.

Bury my heart there.

Do I ever miss the sights and the smells that make up that place. We're getting closer now, you and I. I'm standing in the wet cement of history. There's something that I never thought I would be doing, and that's saying something. And I'm tired.

Really, just…really very tired. There's blood everywhere, and some of it's mine. Blood all over the ground. Everything; every story that ever is or ever was is stopping, and it's all because of me.

Oh yeah. Here we go.


	3. Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Whatever dreams Avatar Korra was having, she could not remember them, and even if she could, she would have shuddered to recall them. It does not do well to dwell on your dreams. Despite the fact that she was now a woman in her mid-forties, and well beyond cringing at nightmares, even if, or perhaps, because she was, the Avatar; if she could've remembered them, she would have been weeping.

In any case, Korra reached a state of what could only be described at seven in the morning as "awake", then she rolled over in her bed and opened her eyes: the sunlight struck them squarely from a crack in the shutters and that was "_just perfect"_, she thought. Covering her face in an act of defiance, Korra sat up like an old tiger-dillo; stretching itself in the morning, with nothing to look forward to in a day, other than perhaps a hunt in the twilight, and, just maybe, that was enough to keep the both of them going; but, conscious of the similarities between her and an aging feline or not; to Korra, that was just fine.

The fact that Korra and Mako had stayed together for the better part of two decades, and eventually came to live in what can only be related in the here-and-now as a villa in the hills surrounding Republic City said nothing of their mutual proclivity to disdain the mundane and boring. Korra and Mako had embarked on more than their fair share, volumes of, in fact, of adventurous romps in the past, all the while juggling their lives, their training, and when that time came; their kids. Home for Korra would always be found somewhere between the South Pole and Republic City. For Mako, home was where Korra was.

It's safe to say that he lived all over the place for a long time.

Lazy mornings always had the tendency to make Korra feel just the tad bit philosophical, which was always disrupted whenever she would swing her feet out of her warm bed and rest them on the cold wood; _you_ know what I mean.

Her bare feet on the hard wood, and with pillows and clothing strewn about in a manner significant only to veteran adults and those select few (I'm being kind, yes), teenagers whom had succeeded in fulfilling their parents' mutual worst nightmare; Korra became aware of her state of nakedness, then stood and stretched again, this time for what seemed to her both miles and years, and what seemed to her significant other like just enough time to roll over, face her, and elicit a moan of morning-induced protest as he did so. Korra bent down to touch her toes, in the process, giving her aforementioned companion an all-too intentional view of her derriere.

"Good morning, dear," said Mako, clearing his throat.

"Good morning yourself, sunshine," Korra said.

Korra's tone was chipper, despite the nightmares she could not remember. (_"So why should that make a difference?"_ I can hear you asking.) Mako stretched before sitting up, and yawned widely, showcasing his open mouth to Korra's back, while her front was far too preoccupied with the sky; a deep purple on the other side of the window, to really notice. Mako closed his mouth, only to open it almost immediately.

"Actually, I was talking to your bum," said Mako. "But good morning to you too." Mako flashed Korra a smirk; the kind of smirk that someone smirks when they know the other person in the room knows their joking, whilst also being slightly suggestive.

Korra turned and grabbed her yesterday's shirt from the half-opened top drawer of the dresser by the window and threw it at Mako's face. Being struck with a sweaty shirt this early in the morning wasn't at the top of Mako's _"What would make this day great?"_ list, but all the same, he laughed with Korra as he caught a mouthful of the fabric and tasted her.

Mako didn't care. He loved that scent. He loved her, and for all the years they had been together, he had never grown tired of any of it.

Still naked, Korra adjourned behind the partition at the foot of the bed, and Mako stood up to the protesting crackle of his spine. After years spent on the police force and at Korra's side, age, time and genetics were taking their toll on his body. As he often told Korra when she asked, Mako would tell her how his father, although only a young man when Mako knew him, would always do the same every morning, and so Korra just accepted this, but only for a few days, or, if he was lucky, a week or two, before she would come around asking again, and Mako would have to relate the whole story all over again.

_True love_, Mako reminded himself with a smile, then glanced at the clock on the nightstand: 7:05am.

Too early.

No sooner did Mako stand and pop that Korra stepped around the corner in a dressing gown, proclaiming that she was "Off for a bath." Korra did not move, and not because she wasn't, in fact, off for a bath, in fact she was, but she was not in any great hurry to get there.

"Are you asking for my permission?" Mako asked, still smirking.

"Hmm, not exactly…" said Korra, a small smile arriving on her lips like a postcard. "I was wondering if, maybe, you'd want to get in _with_ me." Korra did that thing again; that thing that always made Mako uncomfortable: she sounded innocent. Like a girly girl. She sounded like she did when they first met, and after glancing side-ways at the clock, and noticing that the hand was resting at 7:07 in-the-am; _that_ did not bode well for anyone's schedule.

Mako felt uncomfortably comfortable. That's just the way you felt around Korra sometimes.

Mako crept toward her, saying as he did, how much he "would love to", but how he had "to meet Bolin for breakfast." It took more effort, now that he was standing about three inches from her chest.

"I didn't know Bo was in town," said Korra, innocently.

"Yeah. We've been meaning to get together sometime." Mako looked down on her. "Catch up," said Mako.

"Oh. Well, okay," said Korra. Korra sounded, if anything, genuinely in-genuine. She wasn't as hurt as her tone betrayed, and in fact, she wasn't hurt at all: Mako hadn't seen his brother in months, and she could always see that it bothered him to not be in close proximity to his little brother. All the same, she would never forego the chance to get close to him, in that mischievous teenage way.

Korra sighed evenly with content when Mako wrapped his arms around her waist and waited. She stared back up at him. There was always, at a moment like this, between these two, when the gentle sizzling of their lips together, would drive them both over the edge; but, this was hardly the time for any of that, and, then again, that may have just been their mutual imagination.

"It's not the end of the world," said Mako as they separated. Though, to be fair, he really did want to stay right where he was.

"Yeah. Besides, I've got things I need to take care of too," said Korra.

"Oh, that's right. Today's the big day," said Mako.

For several months, Korra had been on the receiving end of a wave of telepathic spiritual energy. The creature was seeking guidance in spiritual migration, and despite the fact that she knew almost nothing about of spirit, Korra agreed to help it without hesitation, much to Mako's initial protest. It's important to know that it was the Spirit who had contacted Korra. This holds future relevance, and I dare say that you need to remember it.

"Yeah," was all Korra said before she hastily kissed Mako again. She rested her hands on his chest in that way that would show how buff he was to anyone walking past on the street. Mako _was_ buff, and they _both_ liked it that way. Privately, Korra wanted this moment to stretch on for a mini-forever, and, she assumed, correctly by the way, that Mako did too. For a second - not even a second - a fraction of a fraction of a second; Korra felt something change. Something changed in her, and in the day, and in the way that Mako held her, and she wanted even more, in that moment, to stay where she was.

Unfortunately, the telephone in the next room succeeded in breaking the forever, and the pair looked into the eyes; that universal look that means you don't want to go; before Mako left to answer the phone. There was no stopping it now: the change that Korra felt had wedged its way into her head, and now nothing seemed as chipper or as bright as it had just a few seconds before, leaving Korra little choice but to pull her dressing gown tighter around her waist before walking off to find the bathtub.

A bright day had dawned in the early hours of this particular fall day while Mako and Korra had slept. The sun shone high in the 8:00am sky, and were it not for the constant littering of pumpkin-toned leaves, and a breeze that was nearly devoid of humidity, one could have easily mistaken this particular fall day for a spring one, and although Korra herself was feeling particularly refreshed after her bath, she still felt off in a way that she could not explain. In her life, Korra had never put much stock into the concept of hidden meanings, which, by its very nature, remains a rather huge twist of irony, being who and what she was. If she had, however, now would've been_ a good time to start_, she mused.

Air Temple Island was a place of absolute majesty. There is no other word for it. In the hundred-odd years that had passed since its construction, the Temple and grounds stood as a beacon of hope which stood erect even on the darkest days to be found in Republic City. As she walked up the docks, following the path that she knew would lead her to the meditation huts, Korra began, slowly, to realize, and not for the first time in her life, that she had no idea what she was doing.

If nothing else is to come out of this story, please understand that the migration of a Spiritual Creature, indeed one so ancient – as ancient, in fact, as the world it inhabited - was rarely seen by the Spirits themselves, much less human eyes. People waited whole lifetimes in the hopes of getting no more than a glimpse of something so fantastical. Yet this particular Spirit had been the one to reach out across the rift and make contact with Korra, and, knowing full-well what an honor and rarity it was to bear witness as such, by now, Korra felt uneasy. In her frankly ridiculously lengthy experience, nothing that gave the particular uneasy feeling she was experiencing on this particular morning, did so without good reason.

Sitting down in the meditation huts, Korra closed her eyes, only to open them almost immediately and stand up, straight as a board, almost without thinking. Korra pondered, expressionless for only a moment before taking off for the Octagon. The Octagon was what its name implied: an Octagonal prism which bore the symbols of Tui and La. Moon and Ocean. And was the most spiritually tuned spot on the island.

Korra had started walking.

Korra had started walking to the one place where, even after years of practice and the ease of coming and going that had resulted; she could venture over the easiest. Her mind wasn't clear, which she knew was a mistake in any case, but she was still thinking about Mako and how different things suddenly felt.

Korra walked up the path and knelt inside the perfect center of the Octagon, crossed her legs, and, again, closed her eyes.

The day was still warm; comfortably so, and dry. She could feel things slipping. She could feel herself leaving Mako and Republic City to wait in the back of her waking mind. The day she was going to was a hot one; muggy and uncomfortable on several levels. If, for instance, had she been wearing glasses, the lenses would have been covered in steam. A blast-like wave of humid air and the arrival of a very faint, but still very much _there_ humming – or maybe it was more of a buzzing, but _what difference does that make, really_, Korra thought – told her she was where she needed to be.

More than forty years on, the full weight of just how much she oversaw hits her in the pit of her stomach. She stares in wonder for just a moment; all that she allows herself by now, and then starts forward. The first step always felt like a bad wave of vertigo; as though she would vomit any moment, and in that tiny few seconds the foot hovers above the ground feels like forever until the foot makes contact and everything feels right as rain. Each step echoed, if, maybe only in Korra's mind, like the strum of a Kalimba.

Korra was where she needed to be: she could feel the cosmic vibration of the tree-like things and the animal-like things all around her. As she moved, Korra became oddly aware of something, or rather the absence of something. The place was empty. Not the Spirit World, of course, but the immediate vicinity where Korra was taking ever-shallower steps.

The creatures that inhabited the Spiritual Realm were not all Spirits. Some, rather like Korra, were travelers; creatures that communed across the brink in their own ways, and sought guidance, perhaps, for their own ends: Gurus, monks, and the like. Others were animals, long extinct, who were brought to the realm by Spirits to save them. Creatures who had yet to exist; waiting on their time to spring out into the other world. And even a few impossible things: forms of strange life and death, all either trapped or growing on one or both sides.

As Korra walked, these creatures weren't simply avoiding her; they were turning their tails and running away. Everything from Spirit to badger-frog was running in the opposite direction.

Korra kept walking, though she repeatedly entertained the idea of stopping and calling out. However, by all rights, what happened that made Korra stop cold in her tracks was, and now is, of course, impossible. However, for all intents and purposes; without warning to her, a patch of impossible trees in an impossible place simply ceased to exist: it bent to the will and body of a pure, white day-glow-like creature as old as the stars.

With no face to call its own, Korra was unsure how to proceed; after the long pause of stunned silence, of course, and, by which time, she could force her brain to work properly again, all she could think about was the disbelief that _this_ was the creature. She knew without knowing. She had never laid eyes on it, and, had the circumstances been, in any way different, she would have undoubtedly said something. Instead, she remained in what seemed to her to be an involuntary, awed silence.

With a side of its form that looked, to Korra, as blank and empty as any, but what must have been its face, it spoke to her, thought there was no motion from its pale-bright surface.

It spoke to her, or rather, through her. In her mind.

It said:

"In the beginning, there was the Dao, and the might that is the Lion Turtle.

Then, there was the Avatar, and their time.

Now, there is nothing but the end."

There followed after, a flash of light. A flash of light so bright and beautiful and terrible that Korra would later marvel at how she had all together escaped being blinded.

All of these thoughts, of course, would only come much later for Korra. All she knew at the moment of the blinding light, in what should've been an exceptionally lengthy period of optometric adjustment; Korra's back was to the earth. She knew that much and that was a start. She knew that she missed Mako and that she could feel grass, and a rock, numbly digging into a shoulder blade, and the only other thing that Korra knew for certain was that she had no idea where she was, or why, and that her head was absolutely killing her.


	4. Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

As we get further along in this particular story, it's important to remember that this is a work of absolute fiction. That being said, it's perhaps more important to remember that a handful of impossible things have happened in this story already, and that, to say the least, the definition of the word "absolute", is tenuous at best. Let's keep going…

If anybody were to say that Avatar Taku was anything less than the kind of person who would bend-over-backwards to help someone in need, you have this Author's express permission to look them straight in the face and boldly proclaim them a liar.

Avatar Taku was indeed the kind of man who would do anything for both friend and stranger alike; in fact, the very day we meet our secondary protagonist, he had been trying his very best to please everybody.

For over three decades the King in the Far East, that is to say, the King of Ba Sing Se, as this was a time well before he would be called "The Earth King" - and for good reason - had sought to unify the land which surrounded Ba Sing Se's first Great Wall, and failed. Ever since the first inhabitants of the Crystal Catacombs* had crawled out into the daylight centuries before, these simple, salt-of-the-earth people had tried to control as much of the salty earth that they could lay their grubby hands on.

In a manner of speaking, and Orda, (the name of the King in the Far East), certainly saw it this way; he was simply carrying on with what had worked for centuries.

That being said, some of the most horrific things imaginable were perpetrated simply because people in general were, and continue to be, to a great extent, scared of change. Taku knew this all too well. The Avatar before him had been a venerated Master who had held the world together for nearly a hundred and fifty years, then up and died of old age, peacefully, in his bed. Everybody loved him, and consequently saw Taku as nothing more than what could only be described in today's tongue as a poser.

It would be fair to say that Taku had had a rough few years. Twenty-three of them, in fact.

Unlike most, Taku had never been gifted as a child. Even his native element of Earth had been well-known to give him issue and several broken bones over the years.

Despite his somewhat unfavorable traits, Taku was the type to take his responsibilities seriously, so much so to the point of frequent exhaustion and the unseemly death of several relationships. But, he was young, and had plenty of time; his whole life ahead of him in fact. Plus, he was the Avatar.

Time, and the Avatar.

After the sudden loss of realization and understanding Korra had experienced upon arriving at she-didn't-know-where; Korra had passed out. She dreamt of things not-happened: a titanic conflict, the death of heroes, and the change of the guard. Then she woke up.

Korra's headache had not subsided, but at the very least, it was constant. The rock in her shoulder though, had to go. She rolled over and onto all-fours, which she immediately regretted because she threw her guts up. Exhausted, Korra rolled her body away from the pile of sick and landed with her back to the earth and then she slept. The rock was still in her back, though not quite in the same spot.

When Korra awoke again, the sun was much lower in the sky. Late afternoon, she judged. Korra didn't feel sick any longer, though to be fair, she hadn't before she rolled over and tried to stand up the first time. "_Geronimo_", she thought, and sat up. No sick. _Off to a good start…_

Then it hit Korra, when she stood up. What she had been doing before she came here; and every emotion from fear to empathy to confusion to anger hit her all at once, with a matching set of tears streaming down from her eyes as she struggled to cope. For a few solid minutes, Korra was a kid again. She couldn't help it, and no one should think her any less for it.

It comes to the point for every Avatar that they can hear the voices of the Spirits speaking to them, if they listen properly. Korra had been adept at this for years, and therefore, she was justifiably surprised, a polite euphemism in this case for "scared", when she heard only the silent noises of her own mind. Only after several agonizingly long moments, the only thing she found to be happening was some kind of feedback; the kind that happens when you run a tap too fast and the sink fills up faster than the water can run out. Effectively, Korra had been reaching out tendrils all over another plain of existence, and then it all came back on her. Dizzy, Korra clapped both hands to her head and waited for it to stop, "_hopefully"_, she somehow thought.

She was right, though no sooner was she due another unexpected arrival in the form of a rider on the horizon.

For a longer amount of time than should've been acceptable to anybody casually observing, let alone giving due consideration and scrutiny to the situation; King Orda had been trying to convince Avatar Taku to persuade Ba Sing Se's surrounding burrows and villages to submit to a more subjugated lifestyle. Privately, the King hoped that the added muscle of the Avatar, even in the form of a _"wimpy, and dare-I-say, pathetic"_ young man, (for he had been a fan of Taku's predecessor), would force the villages to see his version of reason. Despite the fact that Taku was against such an idea, he felt that he had at least a marginal responsibility to his nation, and felt he had to carry out the King's wishes.

The whole thing only served to make his head hurt.

Taku loved to ride. His ostrich-horse was his best friend and he looked forward to the times when he could go riding, as fast as he could, and leave everything that was confusing him right where it was. Had this day been a normal day, he would have succeeded.

It is the definition of needlessness for me to tell you that this day was anything but ordinary, for anyone involved.

Taku's life would change forever just over the next hill, which, in itself, is not exactly extraordinary, since people's lives change all the time.

Korra was exhausted, and by her reckoning, it had barely been three hours since she rolled out of bed. Korra did not like exhaustion at early hours. Her head was getting better, although it still ached in a very much gone-but-still-here kind of way. As it happened, Korra had fully recovered her faculties as Taku was cresting the hill.

Korra was the one who looked up, and there they saw each other.

The immediate effect was something similar to what happens when you look through an old photo album containing photos almost exclusively of your infant self: you feel like you know the person staring back out at you, frozen in moments of happy time. You feel this way because you _do_ know the person. They _are_ you.

Korra and Taku were experiencing this sensation.

Taku road closer and no words were spoken. Both stared at the other, though they could not have told you why. Taku came within a stone's throw from this strange woman before he spoke, and even then it was odd and uneasy; as though he were struggling to find the words somewhere in the back of his brain.

"Welcome; stand and unfold yourself, dear lady," Said Taku. "How can I help you?"

It is no well-kept secret that people often spoke with most with most regal-a-tongue in the past, so therefore it should not be surprising to find such dialogue in such a tale as one as this.

Korra, though initially taken aback, understood this stranger's meaning, and did thus retort:

"Hello and thank you, sir." She hesitated, careful not to offend Taku's sense of formality. "My name is Korra, and I am the Avatar."

There was a pause: long, but short at the same time, and certainly to be described as awkward.

"Begging your pardon, milady, but _I_ am the Avatar."

There's a line in most children's stories, transcribed or not, which reads something like; "everything in this story has happened before, but this time we find ourselves in *fill-in-the-blank*." This is actually, truly true. Everything depicted herein _has_ happened before and it will happen again. The setting and the gravity of the situations will change, obviously, but that's just the way everything goes. That is to say, the way that life goes. No one will weep for the loss of yet another era of humanity, except, of course, those who get left behind. Remnants.

This is my curse.


End file.
